Arcades ambo. When the scene of the eclogue is laid, as it apparently is, in Cisalpine Gaul (see v. 13), it seems very strange that the poet should call these two shepherds Arcadians. Voss, who will everywhere in poetry find historic accuracy, supposes that the Arcadians, who were themselves so fond of music, taught it to their slaves also, and that some of these slaves being sold to the Romans thus carried their art into Italy. Or he thinks (though history is silent on it) that Mummius on the taking of Corinth sold Arcadians as well as Corinthians, and that our two swains were of their descendants. We rather think, in consequence of the celebrated passage in Polybius (iv. 20) describing the law of Arcadia for the cultivation of music and its softening and humanising effects on the manners of the people, that among the educated classes at Rome, for whom alone Virgil wrote, the term Arcadian may have been in use to signify one skilled in song, or rather perhaps in extemporary versification like the modern improvisatori. We need hardly add that this is all mere conjecture. It would seem as if it was this place and the tenth eclogue that gave origin to the modern ideas of Arcadian bucolic life and manners, so like the golden age, so unlike the Arcadia of history and reality. Sannazzaro, in his prose romance of the Arcadia, seems to have been the immediate origin of these modern notions.-5. Et cantare, etc., skilled in amœbæic song. Possibly cantare is used to express the singing of the first in a contest of this kind; and respondere, the response of the second.

6-13. Huc, hitherwards, in the direction of the tree under which the three swains were sitting.-dum defendo, whilst I am engaged in securing my myrtles against the cold by putting straw about them. See Plin. xvii. 2. This also indicates the spring, as it was then that the myrtles were in danger of being nipt by the night-frosts; unless we suppose Virgil in his eclogues to have been heedless of the order of nature. The difficulty which Servius and many of the moderns have seen in this passage, and which they have endeavoured to get rid of by alteration of the text or by strained interpretations, arose from their confounding this introduction with the following

amœbæic song, forgetting that in songs of this kind the singers drew from their imagination, and sung the charms or the occupations of any season they pleased without any regard to the actual one. The poet has defendo in the present, instead of defendebam, to make the narrative more vivid. See Zumpt, § 506.-7. Vir, i. e. maritus. Qrpaye râv Xevкāv aiyev avep, Theoc. viii. 49. Cf. Hor. C. i. 17, 7.—ipse, the buck himself, to whom I had given the flock, as it were, in charge, had strayed and led with him the rest: see v. 9.deerraverat, the first syllable is contracted, as in Lucretius (iii. 873), Deerrarunt passim motus ab sensibus omnes, and elsewhere. A similar contraction is the common one of deerat.atque, sc. when he is going in search of his flock.-8. Ille ubi me, etc. It would appear that Daphnis, who knew that Meliboeus' goats had strayed, guessed when he saw him what his errand was.-9. caper et haedi. See on v. 7.-10. quid, i. e. aliquid tempus.-cessare, i.e. otiari.-11. Huc ipsi potum, etc., 'the cattle will come hither of themselves to water.' These could hardly have been those of Daphnis, as Voss asserts; neither is there any reason for supposing them to have belonged to Meliboeus. It seems most simple, with Forbiger, to suppose the coming of the cattle to drink to be an agreeable sight in the eyes of shepherds, and therefore used as an inducement by Daphnis. If a painter were making a picture of the scene of this eclogue, he certainly would not omit the cattle.-12. Hic viridis, etc. We think that the critics are right in making viridis agree with Mincius, and not with ripas, as giving a much more novel and picturesque image. It is like the rio verde, rio verde, of the Spanish ballad.-tenera, tender, weak, that yields to the impulse of every breeze, and can be bruised by any slight force.-13. Mincius, the river which flowing from the Alps forms a lake round Mantua, and then passes on to join the Po.-sacra quercu. The oak was sacred, as every one knows, to Jupiter: it cannot be the same with the ilex under which they were sitting, and it therefore forms another feature in the landscape.-examina, swarms,

V. 13. ὧδε καλὸν βομβεῦντι ποτὶ σμάνεσσι μέλισσαι.—Theoc. v. 46.

quasi exagmina, as being driven or led out of the hives. This also indicates springtime.

14-20. Quid facerem? etc. 'What was I to do in this case? I had no one to attend to my business at home, and yet there was a contest here such as may not often be witnessed.'— Alcippen neque Phyllida. Forbiger, following Servius, says that these were the mistresses of Corydon and Thyrsis, who attended to affairs at home, and thus gave them leisure to amuse themselves; and therefore Meliboeus means he had no one like them to attend to his affairs. Voss thinks that they were slaves belonging to Meliboeus. Perhaps they were his fellow-servants, and his meaning is that, unaware of this contest, he had not given them any directions about the lambs.15. Depulsos a lacte. See on i. 22. iii. 82 : a lacte, i. q. a matribus. The ewes in Italy usually yeaned in November and December (see Palladius, xii. 13), and the lambs were weaned when four months old: another indication of the spring.16. Et certamen, etc. And there was a great contest, even that of Corydon with Thyrsis, two such distinguished singers. -17. ludo. See on i. 10.-19. alternos, Musae, meminisse volebant. There is much difficulty about this passage, of which even in the time of Servius there were two readings, some copies having volebant, others volebam. Voss, who adopts the latter, says that volebam is for vellem, as in i. 80, poteras is for posses; to which Wagner objects that vellem denotes the wish for what one has not, whereas Meliboeus seems to have remembered a good deal. Adopting the reading of volebant, which is undoubtedly the right one, Wunderlich says that meminisse is i. q. aggredi tractare, like the Greek peμvñolai. The most simple explanation seems to be that of Heyne, that as the poets represented themselves as taught by the Muses, they might justly say that they remembered what they had been taught. Me is therefore to be understood after meminisse.-20. in ordine, in the established amœbæic order.

21-28. Corydon commences the contest by an invocation of the Muses, whom he terms the Libethrian nymphs, from the fountain Libethrum on Mount Helicon, or from a more ancient fountain of the same name in Pieria. For the proofs

of the Muses being anciently regarded as water-nymphs, see Mythology, p. 189.—noster amor, my love, i. e. the objects of my love. Cf. i. 57. ii. 65. x. 22.-22. Codro. This is probably here, as in v. 11, simply the name of a shepherd. But see on v. 26.—proxima, sc. carmina, from the preceding carmen. Thus Aen. viii. 427, Fulmen erat toto Genitor quae plurima caelo Dejicit. Burmann, as Forbiger here observes, has shown on Quinctilian, ix. 2. that the plural often refers to a preceding singular. It is thus that Servius, followed by most interpreters, understands the passage. Heyne and Wagner, however, suppose proxima to be taken absolutely for the adv. proxime. We think the former interpretation much to be preferred.-23. Versibus, a dat.—si non possumus omnes, if we all cannot make such verses as Codrus.-24. Hic, etc. I will resign my art. It was customary for those who retired from the exercise of any art or profession to hang up the instruments belonging to it in the temple of the deity who presided over it. See Hor. Carm. iii. 26, 3. Ep. i. 1, 5.-arguta pinu. See on v. 1. The pine was sacred to Cybele, but it was also sacred to Pan. Ov. Met. i. 699. Mythology, p. 232. It is evidently the latter deity that is meant here.-25. Thyrsis, instead of invoking some other deity, as would seem to have been the usual custom (see iii. 62), calls on his fellow-swains to crown him as the superior of Codrus.-nascentem poetam, the rising poet, he who has just begun to make verses, i. e. Thyrsis himself. Nascentem is the reading of Servius and of the Med. MS. a priore manu, and is adopted by Voss, Wagner and Forbiger. The ordinary reading, crescentem (which has the air of a gloss), is followed by Heyne and Jahn.-hedera: poets as being followers of Bacchus were crowned with ivy. See Hor. C. i. 1, 29. Ov. Met. v. 338. Fast. v. 79.-26. Arcades: see on v. 4.-rumpantur ut ilia Codro, that Codrus may burst with envy. We have the corresponding expression, burst the sides, but we use it only of laughter. From the mention of the envy of Codrus it has been attempted to identify him with a real person; for Dousa in his Auctorium to Cruquius's Commentary on Horace, p. 694, when speaking of the Hiarbita, who, the poet says (Ep. i. 19, 15) burst with envy or

emulation of Timagenes, observes, "Nam hic Hiarbita Maurus regione fuit Cordus qui," etc.; and hence Weichert (Poet. Lat. Reliq., p. 402) infers that Cordus was, like Bavius and Maevius, an enemy of our poet, who has here a blow at him even though he was then dead. We do not by any means adopt this opinion.-27. ultra placitum, that is, beyond what pleases him, beyond what he really thinks I merit. Excessive praise was considered to be a kind of fascination.-bacchare: see iv. 19. This plant was held to be efficacious against witchcraft and fascination.-28. vati futuro, the poeta nascens of v. 25.

29-37. The rival bards now try their skill in the composition of epigrams, or inscriptions for the statues of gods. Corydon commences with one to Diana, in the person of a young hunter named Micon, who offers to her, or hangs up in her honour, the head of a wild-boar and the antlers of a stag.-Delia, as being born with her brother Apollo in the isle of Delos.-parvus, probably on account of his youth.30. vivacis. The stag was considered by the ancients to be peculiarly long-lived.-31. Si proprium hoc fuerit. By hoc is meant his success in hunting, which was, by a common practice of the ancients, understood to be implied in what precedes; proprium signifies lasting, so as to become as it were one's own property. Propria haec si dona fuissent, Aen. vi. 872.-levi de marmore, etc. I will have a statue of smooth or polished marble made of you, on which the buskins, which as the huntress-goddess she wore, would be coloured red. It was a common practice of the ancients to colour parts even of marble statues.—32. evincta, to denote the tight lacing of the well-fitting buskin.-33. Thyrsis, in reply, makes an epigram for a statue of Priapus, the god and keeper of gardens. -Sinum. The sinus was a large wine-bowl, so called, says Varro (L. L. v. 123), "a sinu quod majorem cavationem quam pocula habebant." Sinus or sinum is derived from sinuo, to bend, to hollow, and originally signified anything hollowed: hence we meet the sinus of the toga.-liba. The libum was a cake made of flour, cheese and eggs. Cato (R. R. 75) gives the following receipt for making it: "Bray two pounds of